Journalism Kit

Learning Resource Kit for Gender-Ethical Journalism and Media House Policy

The kit is the result of collaboration between the World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to redress gender disparities in news media content.

Little progress has been made since the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action called for more gender sensitivity in the media and self-regulatory mechanisms to eliminate gender-biased programming. Research such as the Global Media Monitoring Project shows just how marginalised women remain in the news. In 2010, the GMMP revealed that women make up only 24% of the people heard, read about or seen in the news.

The IFJ launched the Ethical Journalism Initiative to confront on-going discrimination in the news and reconnect journalists to their mission by enforcing core ethical standards. Challenging sensationalism and stereotypes, checking facts, abiding by codes of conduct, supporting independent self-regulatory bodies are some of the actions identified to uphold media quality and rebuild the public’s trust in the news. Fair gender portrayal is one of the issues to be given priority if media hope to fully reflect the role women play in society. The widespread use of social media, blogs and the development of online news should not be overlooked. Numerous cases reveal a failure to portray gender issues fairly and accurately and very few initiatives exist to develop ethical standards and avoid unfair and outdated stereotypes.

The kit aims to provide an answer to the gender gap in news content and lack of self-regulatory mechanisms - where these do not exist - to confront gender bias. It is organised in two books that may be read independently of each other. Book 1 discusses conceptual issues pertaining to gender, media and professional ethics. Book 2 presents gender-ethical reporting guidelines on several thematic areas.

Who Makes the News (WMTN) is a knowledge, information and resource portal on gender and the media. It hosts the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), a research and advocacy initiative that pursues gender equality in and through the news media.

WMTN is run by WACC, a global network of communicators that seeks social justice through communication rights.